Jeihan Sukmantoro Gallery

Jeihan Sukmantoro

Jeihan Sukmantoro

His unique distinction from other painters is his style of painting people with holes in their eyes. The eyes are fully painted in black. This is the identity of the Jeihan’s paintings. The hollow eyes become his faming trademark. The invention of the hollow eyes occurred in 1963, during his college days in ITB, which were a difficult time of Jeihan’s life. Before that, when he was in Himpunan Budaya Surakarta, Jeihan used to paint faces with normal eyes.

One of Jeihan Sukmantoro Painting

Hollow eyes aren’t mere strokes of paint. They contain Jeihan’s philosophy and futurism. The philosophy is, “we are all walking in the darkness of mystery, we still don’t know where we’ll go” he said. As for the futurism is “one day the ozone layer will be thinned, and everyone will wear black soft lens.” In the world that’s getting hotter, people wear sunglasses just to avoid glare, it’s different with Jeihan’s prediction about sunglass-wearing that’s quite futuristic.

Before the hollow eyes became his trade mark, there were so many critics that booing the hollow eyes paintings. At that time he admitted that he could not stand those criticism. However, he was very confident and continued to do the hollow eyes, he was being true to himself, because that’s the essence of ethics and aesthetics. “You can feel the honesty of a painter in his painting.” Jeihan said while stretching his legs on a sofa. – Source